of epithets, I said:

"It seems to me that you are taking on a good many airs about these
remains. I don't quite see what YOU'VE got to say about them?"

"I? I've got ALL to say about them. They'd never have been thought of if
I hadn't found their opera-glass. The corpse belongs to me, and I'll do
as I please with him."

I was leader of the Expedition, and all discoveries achieved by it
naturally belonged to me. I was entitled to these remains, and could
have enforced my right; but rather than have bad blood about the matter,
I said we would toss up for them. I threw heads and won, but it was a
barren victory, for although we spent all the next day searching, we
never found a bone. I cannot imagine what could ever have become of that
fellow.

The town in the valley is called Leuk or Leukerbad. We pointed our
course toward it, down a verdant slope which was adorned with fringed
gentians and other flowers, and presently entered the narrow alleys of
the outskirts and waded toward the middle of the town through liquid
"fertilizer." They ought to either pave that village or organize a
ferry.

Harris's body was simply a chamois-pasture; his person was populous with
the little hungry pests; his skin, when he stripped, was splotched like
a scarlet-fever patient's; so, when we were about to enter one of the
Leukerbad inns, and he noticed its sign, "Chamois Hotel," he refused to
stop there. He said the chamois was plentiful enough, without hunting
up hotels where they made a specialty of it. I was indifferent, for the
chamois is a creature that will neither bite me nor abide with me; but
to calm Harris, we went to the Hotel des Alpes.

At the table d'hote, we had this, for an incident. A very grave man--in
fact his gravity amounted to solemnity, and almost to austerity--sat
opposite us and he was "tight," but doing his best to appear sober. He
took up a CORKED bottle of wine, tilted it over his glass awhile, then
set it out of the way, with a contented look, and went on with his
dinner.

Presently he put his glass to his mouth, and of course found it empty.
He looked puzzled, and glanced furtively and suspiciously out of the
corner of his eye at a benignant and unconscious old lady who sat at his
right. Shook his head, as much as to say, "No, she couldn't have
done it." He tilted the corked bottle over his glass again, meantime
searching around with his watery eye to see if anybody was watching him.
He ate a few mouthful